Cleveland Museum of Art

Sweets Bowl

Seifū Yohei III

Date

1893–1914

Medium

Glazed porcelain

Culture

Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Seifū Yohei III was the most prominent head of a ceramics studio in Kyoto that specialized in Chinese-style porcelains and especially items for use in sencha (煎茶), or the drinking of steeped-leaf tea with companions. Sencha was popular among the bunjin of Kyoto and Osaka, who often enjoyed it as part of their emulation of Chinese culture. While sencha was by design less formal than the Japanese tea ceremony, it still featured the display of treasured objects. Prized Chinese antiquities were generally unobtainable, so substitutes such as the Gu-Shaped Flower Vase, CMA 2022.224 , were much in demand. Bowls for distributing sweets, like this one, were also a staple of sencha gatherings. Names for the glazes, written in ink with a brush on the lids of the custom-made storage boxes for the works, often indicate a specific glaze or ware that had inspired Seifū Yohei III.

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